Sunday Quickie: Pregnant Then Scr*wed
the genius of hijacking attention + provoking action... in seconds
In Sunday Quickies I share how brands show up in the world and shape our experience. I share a quick exposé/spotlight on a brand and would love your POV, too.
This week Pregnant Then Scr*wed — UK-based charity working to end the motherhood penalty — launched The Career Shredder: “the world's first physical embodiment of what happens to women's careers every single day.”
Within seconds I was intrigued, shocked and excited to shred my CV ⚡
Every year 74,000 women in their UK lose their jobs for getting pregnant or taking maternity leave.
Wait, what?
When I read this on Thursday a.m. I almost spilled my coffee ☕
Ex Saatchi & Saatchi Creative Director Gemma Phillips announced on LinkedIn:
New research from Pregnant Then Screwed, together with Women in Data®, reveals that up to 74,000 women in the UK every year now lose their jobs for getting pregnant or taking maternity leave - an increase of 37% (up from 54,000 in 2016) 🤯
With less than 2% of women able to pursue a claim in an employment tribunal, it's an injustice that usually goes unseen.
Until now.
Visit www.careershredder.com and you'll see a giant office printer/shredder shredding thousands of CVs *live*, exposing the number of women whose careers are destroyed by pregnancy & maternity discrimination every few seconds.
That would be a whopping 74,000 every year in the UK alone 😱
When you click to SHRED YOUR CV it feels like you’re taking part in something big.
You can also see CVs shredded real-time over on youtube.
You may even have to wait a few seconds tho. Because real-time:
As of 17:32, 1st March, 5,514 people have shredded their CVs in solidarity, just 2 days after launch.
Genius or what?
Let’s break it down and see what makes this campaign so damn genius!
👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼
Campaign Insight
The sheer scale of pregnancy & maternity discrimination goes unseen, despite affecting 74,000 women every year.
—👉🏼 By physically visualising this shredding of careers, it turns an abstract injustice into something visible and quantifiable.
Campaign Story
Women’s careers are shredded the moment they become pregnant. Talent, ambition, success, all down the drain for daring to become mothers. And it’s happening every. single. day.
—👉🏼 The shredder is a powerful visual metaphor for daily, ongoing discrimination.
(FYI Founder Joeli Brearley was sacked from her job by voicemail two days after she informed her employer that she was pregnant. Realising her experience was not unique, she launched Pregnant Then Screwed on International Women’s Day 2015.)
Campaign Message
Pregnancy & maternity discrimination is widespread, growing, and economically irrational. It’s a more than personal, it’s an economic earthquake 🫨
—👉🏼 Individually, women can’t fight this systemic issue alone, but collectively we can expose and end to this wasteful nonsense that negatively affects our economy too.
Campaign Copy
Pregnancy & maternity discrimination shreds the careers of 74,000 women every year in the UK. Help us expose the waste.
This copy is brilliant because it:
Leads with the problem: discrimination
Uses active, visual language: shreds
Includes the key stat for whopping impact: 74,000 women
Creates urgency: every year
Localises the issue: UK
Ends with a clear CTA (call to action): Help us expose
Frames the issue as waste, appealing to practical/economic outrage
But mostly…
The true genius lies in the tone: direct and factual without relying on emotion
What incredible restraint. For me that makes it hit harder emotionally.
While I’ve zoomed in on the digital side of the campaign, the campaign was a blend of digital, print, and OOH (outdoor).
This creative campaign is a mega bon geste for me.
What do you think?
Faux pas or bon geste?
Head over to careershredder.com to shred your CV in solidarity now.
P.S. Here’s the genius team behind the campaign:
Creatives: Sam Sword, Harry Osborne, Gemma Phillips
Production Company: The 5Gs
Shoot Studio: Rising Tide Studio, Devon
Designers: Kerry Roper, Harry Osborne
Photography: Jenna Hinton
Typos are my way of checking that you're paying attention—or proof that my brain moves faster than my fingers. (Jury's still out.)